


slip in through the preview

by arzoensis



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, Teleportation, morons to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 13:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19906615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arzoensis/pseuds/arzoensis
Summary: Over the summer, Chris doesn't have much to think about. Whether or not he's getting enough protein, maybe, but that doesn't require a whole lot of gray matter dedicated to it. His brain decides for him that he might as well think about Mika.





	slip in through the preview

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno, this stuff's fun to write.
> 
> Title from Alina Baraz's "Coming To My Senses."

Chris doesn’t even think twice about it if he’s in Europe. Mika always heads back to Sweden if he isn’t going to Worlds himself, and one time he said that Chris should drop by if he’s in the area. Chris assumes that means _if he’s on the peninsula_ , because there’s no reason to even be in Sweden if Mika isn’t there.

Maybe Chris doesn’t give him enough time to prepare for his presence, but it’s a solid four or five hours. He sends a text while he’s boarding the plane in Košice, one that takes him way too long to write and ends up being _u got plans later?_ followed by the emoji that’s winking and has the tongue out.

He’s waiting for his transfer in Warsaw when Mika responds with the heart eyes emoji. And when he finally lands in Stockholm, Mika pulls up in his car, waving and honking while Chris walks over. Mika parks at the curb and gets out of the driver’s seat, pulls Chris into a long, swaying hug. He even smells nice. It’s unfair, really, when Chris looks disheveled from a layover and smells like recycled air and probably has mixed nuts stuck in his teeth.

“Guest bed’s all ready for you,” Mika says once they’ve gotten into the car, and when he smiles in Chris’ direction, tinted sunglasses shielding his eyes, Chris is pretty sure his heart stops for a moment. Very brief. And not at all a problem.

Later, with Chris high on everything—Swedish candy and gorgeous weather and Mika almost glowing with excitement—he claps a hand on Mika’s shoulder and cheeses for the camera.

Chris spends a couple blissful days in Sweden with Mika, walking around and laughing on his couch and eating too many things that his personal trainer would kick his ass for. Getting dropped off at the airport and saying goodbye and staring out the plane window at the ocean while it passes beneath him feels like it should spark a montage, a change of heart. Like he should get right back on a plane and show up at Mika’s front door and say something.

He’s not sure what yet. The flight attendant walks by and asks him to close the shade, and as the last hint of sparkling blue disappears beneath the cover of white plastic, that feels like a sign too.

It doesn’t come to anything. He gets off the plane and calls an Uber to take him back to his apartment. When he just saw Mika in his natural element, New York seems listless and still by comparison. He putters around and works out vaguely and mostly thinks about Mika, waiting until it’s not quite so desperate before videochatting him again. He gives it two days, at least. Okay, a day and a half.

It’s almost like a buzz under his skin. The need to say something, to tell _someone_ , to make it a secret that isn’t just for him anymore. He drives to Connecticut and gets a haircut because that’s about as spontaneous as he can be, and even then it’s because he’s going to be in the state anyway.

Cam takes one look at him and purses his lips and drags him to the squat rack. “We’ll talk about it after,” he says.

True to his word, Cam takes Mika to a little hole in the wall that has seasoned fries and a decent beer selection. They agree (well, Cam says and Chris agrees with him) to schedule the emotions talk for when they’ve finished their third round.

“Okay,” Cam says, setting his glass down with purpose. He’s gone past pink to red, but he’s also practically half of Chris’ size. “Tell me what’s going on with you.”

“Mika’s in Sweden,” Chris says. He traces the condensation on his glass with one finger.

“Okay?” Cam says, dragging out the syllables.

“I miss him,” Chris says.

“Everyone misses their friends,” Cam replies, tepid. “This seems like an interesting reaction.”

“I think I like-like him,” Chris murmurs, sad and miserable and so, _so_ tragic. “And I miss him.”

“Get it together,” Cam says, meanly. He’s being very cruel to a man who is suffering deep and unending heartbreak. Chris considers driving back to New York and never working out with him ever again.

He sighs and rests his cheek on his arm and thinks about how Mika wouldn’t be mean and he’d definitely have good advice. _Tell him how you feel. You shouldn’t be scared of how he’d react—you’re a fucking catch, Kreids. Anyone’d be happy to have you._

He’d be warm and soft and maybe he’d even gaze at Chris a little before looking away shyly, like he’s not allowed. Chris thinks Mika should look at him all he wants. He spends most of _his_ time looking at Mika anyway, and there should be equal ground in their relationship.

“Don’t text him, you oaf,” Cam says, snatching Chris’ phone when he pulls it out of his pocket and onto the table.

“But he’s not here,” Chris whines.

“Have you ever considered telling him how you feel?” Cam says through gritted teeth.

“I don’t think he likes me back,” Chris says. He sighs again, just pure misery.

“Good _grief_.” Cam glares at his beer. “We’re both gonna need something stronger than this if I’m gonna listen to you for another hour.”

He waves his hand at the server. Chris reaches across the table stealthily, knuckles clunking against the wood surface, but Cam pulls the phone closer and fixes Chris with a terrifying stare until he meekly pulls his hand away.

When the server comes back, he deposits several shot glasses too many on the table. Cam pushes two in front of Chris.

“Cheers,” Cam says grimly, and he knocks back the shot.

Chris pours himself into the bed of his rented apartment an indeterminate number of hours later, having somehow dragged Cam home and passing him off to his wife.

He doesn’t even bother with his socks. His legs are so long and his feet are so far away. He stares at his phone until the numbers stop blurring so much—it’s just before midnight. Mika must still be asleep. The time difference isn’t that much, and even in his current state he knows exactly how to convert the time. Chris wonders what he looks like, long eyelashes fanning over his cheeks, hair a mess where it lies against his pillows. Pretty, obviously. Mika could be drooling and still be the best thing since sliced bread.

Chris must fall asleep like that, thinking about Mika and wishing—a small part of him, yes, but not an inconsequential part—that he was there, and tumbling directly into a dream.

It’s a weird one, all things considered. It must be from drinking something he doesn’t normally go for, because usually he doesn’t dream after he drinks. Chris blinks sleepily, sees Mika lying next to him and _staring_.

“What the fuck?” Mika says.

“Oh,” Chris replies, closing his eyes. “G’night.”

“Hold on, don’t you dare fall asleep,” Mika says, poking him in the chest.

“I’m already asleep,” Chris mumbles. He wriggles a little closer, smushes his forehead into Mika’s chest.

Mika wrinkles his nose. “You smell like whiskey.”

“Cam ordered way too many shots,” Chris says, wiping at his eyes. “It was bad.”

“Christ.”

“He told me to get it together. Who says that to a friend?” Chris grumps.

“Hold on, we’re getting off track. How the fuck did you do this?” Mika asks. He pokes Chris again. “ _Why_ the fuck did you do this?”

“'Cause I love you, I guess,” Chris says. Mika’s body freezes, which is very strange. “And I missed you. I _told_ him that and he was still mean to me.”

“I—that doesn’t explain _how_ ,” Mika says.

“Dreams don’t make sense,” Chris says, wisely.

“You aren’t dreaming, Kreids.” Mika pats him kindly on the side, and sort of just leaves his hand there. It’s nice. He has nice hands. They’re warm.

“That’s exactly what someone in a dream would say, and then you wake up and realize you can’t fly,” Chris reasons. He yawns. “And who cares if a dream doesn’t make sense? You’re here. That’s good enough for me.”

Mika opens his mouth, closes it. Chris’ dream logic is perfectly sound, obviously.

“I hope whatever… wish upon a star you made to bring me here sends me back too,” Mika murmurs.

“Why?”

“I gotta take my niece to her swimming class,” Mika says.

Chris means to respond. He really does. But something about this particular chapter of the dream tells him that it’s time to go. Mika’s hand is petting along his side and he smells nice. His dreams are getting pretty vivid now, which is sweet. He hopes this means lucid dreaming isn’t far off.

The last thing he remembers is thinking that Mika is oddly pragmatic for being a figment of his imagination, but the words don’t quite read his lips before the dream dissipates and he’s thrown back into a deep and still darkness.

When he wakes up, he feels absolutely awful. Part of it is the pounding headache currently spreading from one temple to the other and the disgustingly dry mouth. The other part is utter exhaustion, like he spent half the night with his eyes closed lying around in bed instead of actually sleeping. He dozes for an hour before rolling weakly out of bed and trudging to the bathroom. He stares at his pasty face in the mirror and spends about five minutes feeling sorry for himself while he tries to scrub the fuzzy, stale taste out of his mouth.

Cam texted him blithely at eight telling him to show up at the gym at noon, which is cruel and unusual punishment. It’s nearly eleven and there’s no way that Cam is _less_ hungover than him. He inhales what’s left of a package of bacon, half a loaf of bread, and two cups of coffee before he feels vaguely human again.

Mika hasn’t said anything to him yet, which is—a little upsetting, in the sense that he always wakes up to a whole slew of texts, especially when they’re in different time zones. Mika doesn’t know how to keep anything to himself. But maybe he’s busy. Chris reasons that it’s possible, and he probably shouldn’t rely so much on Mika taking the lead on their day-to-day conversations.

He’s about to text _good morning_ when Cam calls and yells at him to show up, and Chris stuffs his phone in his pocket and rushes out the door. In the car, he figures that he’ll just reply when Mika inevitably sends a message. Everything’s going to be fine.

Everything is not fine, because dinnertime swings around and Chris still hasn’t gotten a text back.

“Stop checking your phone,” Cam says, setting a plate down in front of him.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Chris replies, realizing after the fact that his response makes no sense.

Cam raises his eyebrows as he takes a seat across from him. “Run that one by me again?”

Chris hesitates. “Do you ever have a really, really realistic dream about someone?”

“Sure, plenty,” Cam says with a shrug. “Did I ever tell you about that sex dream—”

“It wasn’t a sex dream,” Chris interrupts hastily. He pokes thoughtfully at his food. “It almost felt like he was there.”

“Who, Mika?” When Chris nods, Cam sighs. “Kreids, I think you either have to tell him about it or start getting over it.”

“He’s like, my best friend,” Chris says. “What if I tell him how I feel and fuck it up?”

“If he’s really your best friend, I think that relationship will matter more than your crush,” Cam says, cutting deftly into his chicken breast.

Chris stares at Cam with a forkful of food halfway to his mouth.

“You okay there?” Cam asks, finally, and Chris shakes himself out of it.

“Just thinking,” he replies.

“Don’t pop a blood vessel,” Cam mutters. He reaches across the table and gently pats Chris on the arm. When he looks up, Cam’s face is all fondness and exasperation. “Hey. I know it’s eating you up. I don’t know Mika that well but I don’t think he’s the kind of person to just up and leave if you tell him it’s more than friends. I’m here for you, okay? No matter what you choose to do.”

“Thanks, Cam,” Chris says, and he pats him back. “I really appreciate it.”

Cam clears his throat awkwardly. “Now, please eat the dinner I made you.”

_Crush._ When Chris folds himself into bed he’s still thinking about it, turning the word over in his head. It’s like a lucky coin in his pocket, constantly fidgeted with and rubbed until it turns into a smooth, flat disk. Crush doesn’t feel right, a casual term that isn’t what he imagines when he thinks about Mika. Obsession is too strong. Infatuation isn’t right. It’s desire and respect and love all rolled into one, something like the natural order of orbit—because that’s just how it _is_.

He kind of wishes he wrote that down. It’d be such a hilarious thing to send to someone, he thinks with a scowl.

When he falls asleep he dreams about Mika again, opening his eyes to soft moonlight and a familiar head of dark hair resting on the other pillow.

“Come on,” Mika says, exasperated.

Chris squints blearily into his face. He reaches out with one hand, traces a slow path down Mika’s cheek. Mika blinks at him, and Chris just… keeps doing that.

“I still really miss you,” he says.

“I’m not _dead_ ,” Mika replies.

“You’re really far away,” Chris says, plaintive. “And that’s almost the same.”

“There are definitely easier ways to get me into bed with you,” Mika mutters. “Like, you could ask instead of… I don’t even know. Popping me into existence, or whatever.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Chris says. He burrows deeper into the sheets. “You don’t have to show up if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t exactly know what’s going on either, okay,” Mika says, yanking on the corner of the blanket and letting in a gush of air conditioning.

“Cold,” Chris complains.

“Me too,” Mika replies. “Let me in already.”

Chris grumbles when Mika squishes one cold foot between his calves, but even while unconscious he has to admit that sharing a bed with someone you care about rules.

“We’re gonna have to figure this out eventually, you know,” Mika says. “Like, we’re gonna have to talk about it.”

“I’m not sure how you’d react about any of it,” Chris says, truthful the way everyone seems to be in their dreams. “And besides, it’s not _my_ fault I wanna date you.”

“What do you mean? It definitely is,” Mika replies, but he doesn’t move away when Chris tucks his head in the warm crook of his neck.

“If I told you,” Chris says, hesitating for a moment, “do you think you’d be okay with it?”

“Okay with what?” Mika asks, and Chris doesn’t get to reply.

When he wakes up, Mika isn’t there—of course he isn’t—but there’s a weird indent on the other side of the bed. Huh. Chris figures he must’ve rolled over there in his sleep.

The long, dark hair on the pillow. That part he can’t explain as well.

He doesn’t dream about Mika for a while. Probably because Cam’s personal trainer shows up to take over their self-guided workouts and runs the both of them into the ground. Chris can barely lift his fork at the end of the day, let alone spare a thought for anything else. Instead, he lies in a sweaty pile on the padded gym mats and watches all of Mika’s Instagram stories before sending him a text that pokes fun at his hoodie.

 _you just wish you were as stylish as me,_ Mika texts back.

_I am. You just never see me at my full potential._

_lol. you wore a nice suit once and it was to casino night._

Chris frowns. _I’ve worn nice outfits other times._

 _to be fair, what you wore to sweden was pretty h_ —

“Break’s over, Mika,” Cam calls. His shirt is soaked through in sweat and Chris wonders if he looks like that. “Robbie’s trying to make our deaths stick this time around.”

“He can try,” Chris says darkly. He tucks his phone carefully into his gym bag.

Mika is the one who cracks first. Chris is staring into his fridge, wondering if he can just eat an entire box of cereal for dinner and call it a day when his phone starts vibrating in his pocket.

“We need to talk,” Mika says, voice a little staticky across the line.

“Good to hear from you too,” Chris says absently, shoving aside half a block of cheddar to find absolutely nothing behind it.

“Why haven’t you called?” Mika says, and he sounds—genuinely a little bit upset. He hasn’t turned on the camera on his end despite the fact that they haven’t been on a phone call without seeing each others’ faces in… probably close to a year.

“Uh,” Chris says. He clears his throat. “I’ve been kind of busy. Also we just texted today.”

There’s a long pause. “Is this a bad time?”

“No, no,” Chris says, hurriedly. “I’m just trying to figure out if I can eat a whole box of Raisin Bran for dinner.”

“Raisin Bran? At least eat some Captain Crunch or something.”

“It’s all Cam’s trainer will let me eat,” Chris says sadly. “I’m like, on that stupid caveman diet or something.”

“I won’t tell if you cheat,” Mika says conspiratorially, and this is why Chris loves him.

Chris turns on his cam, almost breathes a sigh of relief when Mika does the same. He looks good, but he always does. Maybe a little tired, like he hasn’t gotten a ton of sleep lately. Chris pours his cereal and shows Mika his bowl of shredded cardboard and they catch each other up on their lives. Mika is very proud of his niece moving up one level in her swim classes. Chris, meanwhile, tells Mika every horrifying detail of his workouts with Cam. Including the fact that he has to, like, make ice cream out of frozen bananas now, which is much sadder than people will have him believe.

“So listen,” Mika says, once he’s stopped laughing enough to get some words out. “I wanted to ask you about the… I guess, the t—”

Chris’ phone vibrates against the bowl he’s put it in to keep it upright. When he checks the screen, it blinks an icon of a drained battery at him before shutting off entirely.

Chris swears under his breath, cursing his habit of charging his phone at random times throughout the day. He plugs it in, but it takes way too long for it to get somewhere that he can actually turn it on. When his phone finally boots up, it vibrates with two messages.

_did your phone die?_

_no big deal. listen i gotta go, i’ll call you later k?_

_Ok,_ Chris replies. _Don’t be a stranger._

And he stands there, his phone at four percent and bowl of cereal half-forgotten on the counter, with the distinct feeling that the world is plotting against him.

He’s so worried about fucking stuff up with Mika, he can barely sleep. But something must happen, between one breath and the next, because the next time he opens his eyes—

“Oh, good,” Mika says, and he sounds relieved. “You brought me back here.”

“Thank god,” Chris says with a sigh. He rolls over and pillows his head on his arm.

“What time is it?” Mika rubs at his eyes, finds Chris’ phone where it’s lying between them. “2 am, jeez. I should be waking up over there. Also you really need to charge your phone.”

“You’re very concerned about the time,” Chris comments.

“Last time you did this, I didn’t get out of bed until noon,” Mika says, groaning. “Can you send me back at a normal time?”

Chris’ brain is whirring, the lump sum of gray matter taking a trek on a treadmill. “What do you mean ‘did this?’”

“Made me appear in Connecticut somehow. Of all places, by the way? Connecticut?” Mika sighs. “You couldn’t figure out you had magical powers or whatever while vacationing on an island?”

“Oh,” Chris says. He tentatively asks, “You’re real?”

Mika stares at him, blinking. “Sorry?”

Chris squints at Mika and pokes him. “Are you like… I’m not dreaming?”

“Um, I’m actually here, if that’s what you’re wondering.” The slow way that Mika responds is very telling.

“Oh,” Chris repeats. He thinks for a moment. “Then how did you get here?”

“I asked you,” Mika says, exasperated, “when you first did this. And you weren’t really helpful there. Did you think I was—I dunno, a ghost, or something?”

“Well, I thought I dreamed you up,” Chris says.

Mika snorts. “Why, have you done that before?”

“I’m not sure,” Chris says slowly. “I think about you a lot. I figured that just got into my dreams, too.”

He doesn’t mean to be so sincere about it, but he supposes he’s always worn his heart on his sleeve. And he’s not quite sure if he really is awake. He watches Mika’s not-exactly-relaxed body language tense up and he wishes he didn’t say it at all—but he relaxes in inches.

“I think about you a lot too,” Mika says, quiet.

“Do you think our brains, like, connected, and then we used that energy to magically make you appear?” Chris asks, hopeful.

Mika shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. Your side’s probably stronger though, 'cause you never showed up to where _I_ was.”

“Maybe you just have to think about me harder,” Chris says confidently. “Like I do about you.”

Mika laughs under his breath. “You know you said ‘I love you’ when you first made me show up here?”

“Yeah, 'cause I meant it,” Chris replies, and he surprises himself with how easy it is to say.

“We should talk about that,” Mika says. “Not—not in a ‘I’m not happy about it’ way. Just, you know, two people who want to be in a relationship should talk about it when they’re not half-asleep.”

Chris thinks about it for a second. “That’s fair. You can think about it, if you want. Uh, whether or not you like me back.”

Mika rolls his eyes, but the look on his face is fond. And the smile’s pretty nice too. “Don’t worry about it. I think I like you back.”

“That’s good,” Chris replies, absolutely rocked with the energy of Mika saying _I like you back_. His heart’s doing somersaults. “I like you back too.”

Mika snorts, leans his forehead against Chris’. “You can send me back now, okay? I’ll talk to you when you wake up.”

“Okay,” Chris murmurs.

He breathes Mika in one last time and closes his eyes. When he falls asleep, he doesn’t dream. Mika’s already right next to him.

When Chris wakes up, even Cam’s text (two weightlifter emojis and a knife emoji) can’t bring him from his near-euphoric state. The next message down is what he cares about—Mika’s sent him those two floating hearts, a sleeping emoji, and the Swedish flag.

 _Talk to you soon,_ it reads, and Chris swipes to start a video chat.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at [Tumblr](https://arzoensis.tumblr.com/) as always. Send me a message there if you wish.


End file.
